I don’t remember the conversation perfectly, but that was the essence.. this was the beginning of a never-ending strong bond of friendship between the two of us! But, it isn’t the beginning of my story!

I had seen her reacting out loud and at times, over-reacting at silly things (like pigeons.. what the hell!!) a few times at our coaching. But, as I don’t believe in first impressions, I never bothered to think about what I saw! We were school mates and shared the same bus and used to go to the same coaching, so we were kind of.. hi-hello friends! Then one fine day, I saw her crying.. and I don’t know why, but, I could not stop myself from asking her what was the matter and if I could help! The matter was clearly centered around a ugly duckling, another sick schoolmate of ours, whom she thought was cheating her! I am a typical female chauvinist and I told her that I am going to talk to him and make him apologize.. and she was gratified! As she stated later that day, after proposing me, “no one ever tried to do something for me, no one ever said they would fight with someone else for me, aur wo bhi itney haq ke sath .. never!!”

So now, after accepting her proposal, we started getting along, and I can’t recall what we did with that guy. We enjoyed each others’ company a lot! Her interests were very much like me, lyrics writing, fighting for girls’ rights, reading novels, listening to music, to name a few! I started spending more time with her and the other two girls (they used to be friends at that time) which resulted in, me avoiding my coolest classmates-turned-best friends! They kept complaining and I kept avoiding them. ( I regret that part… too bad!). I lost a lot of friends meanwhile.. but they were never true friends, she was. I made a lot of new friends in the process, but they were all temporary. School students have their own political issues. We spent the best times together. We lived in the same locality, so we used to be together in bus, during school hours (recess and sports and bunks), at coaching and the rest of the time, either we used to chat on phone or else we were found hanging around at each other’s place! Later, once before the boards, we had this huge fight because of a few misunderstandings created by mutual friends and a few reasons (most of which were my mistakes) that I would not like to mention. We did not talk for almost a month! I missed her.. I also realized meanwhile, that I had lost all my friends and I could not bank upon anyone anymore. I was shattered, unhappy, distressed.. It was the worst period of my life. I was unable to study properly (we used to study together). She was also hurt. After all, we were friends for more than a year and half, and this conflict was heart breaking. Later, two girls at my coaching whom I confided in, helped me in confessing the truth in front of her.. the truth that it was my mistake, but more than that, it was all wrangled up because of rumors.. and even more than that.. I really love her!! She agreed to be friends with me again, but on one condition….